


Divide and Accord

by Domimagetrix



Series: Razwan Bahir, World Guardian [10]
Category: Runescape
Genre: Adult Language, Angst, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Combat, Friendship Taking Precedence over Romantic Relationships, Manipulative Relationship, Multi, References (Spoilers?) Several Quests, References Sex, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 16:23:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13011594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Domimagetrix/pseuds/Domimagetrix
Summary: The question, "where do I stand with you?" crops up in many relationships, romantic and not. Sometimes it's spoken aloud, sometimes wondered quietly without ever being voiced.Razwan answers that question for the three most important people in her life.It doesn't sit well with everyone.





	Divide and Accord

_I’d sooner sell it cheap  
_ _Than tread this limbo culture  
_ _It takes a gun to cleave  
_ _The stone that we’ve been under  
_ _You still take me wrong  
_ _I don’t need understanding  
_ _Let the damage sing  
_ _I’m asking, I’m demanding_

 

Sneaker Pimps - “Velvet Divorce”

 

“Walk with me, Razwan. I would speak with you before Sliske arrives.”

Zamorak’s voice - at least, when conversational and not raised in threat - was pleasant. It still possessed corrugated irregularities at its center, but was sand-tumbled to something cabochon-smooth when he wasn’t bellowing ire to opponents and soldiers alike.

The god himself was also easy on the eyes. He _looked_ like power and danger personified. Appearances didn't deceive, but the horns and everything else were as elegant as they were intimidating. His formerly Mahjarrat eyes were a vital red throughout and lit from within. He dwarfed even Sliske, and compared to me he was a giant.

Most saw the god of chaos, or a Mahjarrat, or an agent of wholesale destruction. A few - like Rhyaz - looked at him and saw “a Zaros-damned looker.” None of it was wrong, particularly the bit about being “Zaros-damned.”

I saw those things, but above it all my eyes beheld a friend.

Reaching where he stood between graveyards in the Soul Wars encampment was a matter of few steps, and we walked side-by-side into the deserted fields beyond. He hem of his lurid robe hissed over the grass, the footsteps beneath surprisingly careful and light.

He spoke quietly. “I anticipated Sliske’s desire for a rematch after his competition. I remained to fight at your side then, and he’s interpreted it as a slight against him.”

A handful of birds took wing from the ground nearby and he watched them. “‘Disappointing,’ he called it. He’s elected for a private battle and I suspect a trap.”

I nodded, eyes scanning the barriers and encampments for signs we weren’t alone. “Of course it is. Traps, puzzles, mazes, manipulations - nothing he does is without purpose, and his purpose always means some kind of entertainment for him in the end. Either he’s not alone or this is a test.” I thought back to the Barrows, and the night his omnipresent mask first cracked. “Or a preparatory step for something else.”

We stopped near the great granite monolith at the center of the battlefield and he turned to me. “I find it unlikely he’ll arrive alone.”

An itch beneath one of the sword sheaths crisscrossing my back grew more insistent and I reached for it, adjusting and scratching. It permitted me to look away. “I have a pretty good idea who’s going to show up with him. Nobody knows the layout of this place quite like Nomad does, and Sliske won’t ignore that advantage.”

Zamorak’s silence grew until fiddling with my gear became absurd. I stopped and looked at him.

His god’s eyes searched mine. “May I ask you something personal?”

Sword sheaths clacked together as I sat on a stair leading up to the monolith next to us. “Sure.”

He inhaled, paused, then committed himself. “Nomad. Sliske. Why?”

A light breeze stirred loose strands of my hair and shifted his robe. I could’ve been deliberately obtuse and asked him to explain, but that wasn’t how things were between us.

I turned to look more easily at him and resigned myself. “Why them and not someone safe? Why the two most dangerous opponents I’ve ever faced? A murderer who set the Underworld ass-up and another murderer who set Gielinor careening toward destruction at the hands of Elder Gods?” I shifted a foot and my seat, annoyed by a thin shaft of light reaching my eye through the treeline. “Why those two?”

Zamorak nodded quietly, eyes still seeking something in mine.

Reaching down and grabbing some gravel with which to occupy my hand, I sighed. “When they survive, what do soldiers look like when they return to their encampments after a fight?”

He seemed puzzled by my question. “Injured, usually. Weary.” His head canted to the side, the array of horns making the gesture grander than it was. “I don’t understand how-”

I held up a hand and he trailed off. “Injured, weary. Right. Maybe a little bloodstained, too. Same for guards, gladiators, anyone who fights for a living. Hunters, sometimes. Anyone who kills. Assassins.” A pebble dropped to the stairs and bounced down them with smart little _tick-tick_ sounds.

My thumb pressed at the rest of the stones in my palm and readied another pebble. “Horrible as those jobs can be, they’re jobs people understand. They can go home to their spouses, their lovers, and talk about their day.” I gave our surroundings a brief visual pass before continuing. “Even when they can’t, their loved ones have a fairly good idea why. It’s… there’s _horror_ in it, but it’s a _mundane_ horror. It’s commonplace. Part of the job, part of life. Even those loved ones who can’t handle a recounting of killing and bloodshed know.” I pointed a finger at my temple. “They’re aware somewhere in their minds, even when spared the details.”

Another pebble _ticked_ down the stairs and my fingers rolled a new one into position. “I’m dirty, bloodied, and injured when I go home, too. Exhausted. But,” I waved my pebble hand around in an aimless circle before letting it come to rest on my knee again, “my workday is different. I can’t go to some woodcarver, shepherd, or even another soldier and tell them about it because my job isn’t mundane. It’s not commonplace. It’s fucking unbelievable.”

 _Tick-tick._ Gravel shifted in my hand, and I heard more than saw Zamorak as he sat next to me on the step.

I went on. “I go home from a day that includes receiving protection from a dying god against other gods, and whatever impossible fucking position that entails. Or the return of gods. Or the news that _evidence_ must be presented for life’s value or the creative forces behind the entire universe will wipe us all out and start afresh.”

Zamorak’s silence endured and I continued. “I’m the World Guardian. It’s the biggest camel shit job I’ve ever had and I can’t quit. Can’t pass it off to someone else. I’m stuck on unbelievable detail until I die, or ascend, or whatever in Duzakh’s depths awaits me.”

An unwelcome surge of emotion unsettled me and I swallowed it back. “I can’t drag someone untried in the unbelievable into that. I learned the hard way with Astrid.” My eyes closed briefly against the memory, then opened again and sought my friend. “I’m not a hero, either. Not a ‘good guy,’ like Sliske said. My pool’s limited unless I want to drive someone insane with terror or risk them doing something noble and getting killed for me. Nomad can handle being with the World Guardian. Sliske… is Sliske.”

I shrugged miserably.

Zamorak’s eyes hadn’t strayed from me. “You love them.”

I nodded, then stopped. “I love Nomad. I feel… _something_ about Sliske. It works for now.”

Red eyes sought my black ones and the searching didn’t relent. “You know Sliske intends a fight and will bring Nomad with him. Yet you meet me here?”

I matched his confused gaze with a determined one of my own. “You lent nothing to Dawn when she turned. You didn’t let me face Sliske alone when it counted, when we were close to the Stone.” I touched my midsection where the Staff of Armadyl had pierced me. “You were rendered mortal inside Sliske’s maze and you stayed to fight with me, despite the Stone of Jas being destroyed and the object of your interest removed from the equation. You put yourself at risk. Of _dying_. You stayed with me and fought and you got me out of there when I was wounded.”

The granite beneath me became uncomfortable and I stood, turning to Zamorak and eyeing the battlefield behind him. “People and gods have been kind to me when it suited them, either because I was useful at the time or as an investment in a powerful ally, and only as far as they needed to… except you.”

Zamorak stood, and I moved slightly to keep the area behind him visible. “You’ve had my back since day one. _Really_ stood with me. I’ve had yours, too.”

He agreed. “We seem disinclined to betray each other.”

I took a steadying breath. “I love the...m.”

Truth, and no time to examine it. “I love them. I’m here and willing to fight with you against them.” I met his gaze and extended my hand.

There was something in his expression I would’ve taken for wonder if he’d been another man. Or another god. He lifted his own hand and clasped my forearm as I clasped his.

He held it briefly before letting his hand drop away. “You don’t adhere strictly to the doctrine. I’d have trouble describing you in terms of faith or religious affiliation at all.” His assessing gaze ignored the fields in favor of me. “I still can’t divine your reasoning.”

“Zammy, old boy, your observation skills would fit in the same box in which I keep my fondness for Saradomin. I’d still have room to fit Azzanadra’s throbbing response to Zaros.”

My hands went instinctively to the hilts of my scimitars, drawing them as I spun to face the source of the familiar, unctuous voice. It struck me that, no matter how often I’d heard that voice murmuring in intimacy or languid with satisfaction, drawing a weapon was still my thoughtless response to it.

Zamorak’s incredulity at my choice of lovers wasn’t undeserved.

Sliske stood with Nomad in the cluster of leaf-shadows from which Zamorak and I had emerged minutes ago. The former looked quite at ease, irregular wind shattering the mostly shaded area with cracked patterns of sunlight that decorated his robe and complicated the light gray markings on his face.

He smiled at us, the very image of confidence.

Nomad didn’t smile.

He looked murderous. And betrayed.

I waved a scimitar in greeting. _How’s it taste, Quen?_

I might’ve forgiven him for what he’d done in Icthlarin’s fortress, but I hadn’t forgotten. Or _entirely_ forgiven him.

The small dose of satisfaction also left a bitter aftertaste; that the Scourge of Souls had earned the feeling didn’t mean I cared to be its deliverer.

Sliske noticed. He waved a gloved hand dismissively at Nomad. “Honestly, love. If you couldn’t predict her siding with Zamorak over you by now, you’ll never understand her.”

He winked at me. _Winked._

_Leave him the fuck out of this._

I felt Quen pull at the soul connection and promptly shut it down. No time for the inevitable avalanche of his questions, and even less to consider his surprise at my standing with Zamorak.

We were closer, damn him. He should’ve known. He should’ve put it together long before Sliske managed it.

_Sliske knows you better-_

I stomped the thought out of existence.

The Mahjarrat saw something in my face and it seemed to please him. “Nomad here might have some reconsidering to do when this is over, pet, but I will not. You’re as valuable to me now as ever you were.” He turned his attention to the god of chaos and his expression became less amicable. “Zammy’s stand with you _did_ surprise me, however, and it isn’t going to go unaddressed.”

Zamorak’s hands clenched and dull, red light pulsed within them. “You failed to hand over the Stone of Jas. Your deal wasn’t honored - not that I expected you to behave honorably - and I will see you dead for it.”

Sliske huffed a laugh. _“Caveat emptor,_ old boy. The Stone was yours. That it wasn’t immune to the Dragonkin or the other Elder Artifacts isn’t my problem.” He ticked one fabric-clad finger back and forth in another infuriating mimic of my gesture. “Next time, ensure the quality of the product before you commit.”

“I tire of your nonsense, Sliske!” Zamorak’s hands opened, the twin glows spiraling into threatening whirlwinds above his palms. “Time to put it and its source out of my misery.”

He flung one malevolent-looking spell and Sliske ducked, returning fire with a shot of something that stole the light near it as it traveled to Zamorak. Both of them dodged, deflected, and aimed lethal magic at each other in an onslaught that drove dirt into the air.

I wasn’t given long to observe them. Nomad’s staff rose in his hand and took on a silvery-blue cast, gentle and comforting unless the target understood the devastating nature of his magic.

I understood, and skidded to the side as the projectile shot past me close enough for its energy wake to stir my hair. Rather than run or seek cover, I yelled a curse and shot forward, wheeling both scimitars around me in a protective wall of blood magic-encased steel. Fear - the good, sense-heightening kind - made everything sharp.

We clashed, Nomad’s multipurpose staff now servicing as a spear, and Sliske’s voice rose above our collective growls of effort as the pair of us blocked and held.

“I INVOKE OUR CONTRACT, RAZWAN BAHIR! PROTECT ME!”

_Contract…?_

The moment’s confusion cost me, but before Quen’s staff slammed into my shoulder I was already crumpling in agony. It was the same full-body protest as I’d felt when we’d tested a binding agreement once before, absolute and nearly irrefusable. My soul itself burned, scorching each physical particle to which it was attached.

I barely felt the staff connect.

Instead, I felt…

_No, fuck, no, NO!_

A fall to the knee would probably finish the job of crippling me, and instead I fell in full, rolling to the side and hearing Nomad’s staff strike the ground where I’d been. It caught the end of my braid painfully before letting go. The roll continued until I stood again, unsteadily, bracing both red-coated steel blades in defense.

He had to know. The draw to Sliske’s side was too strong and I was shaking with the need to reach him. “ZAMORAK!”

The god’s voice was strained. “I cannot help-” the impact of a spell made the ground itself shudder, “-you right now, Razwan!”

“No!” I dodge-rolled another of Nomad’s swings, the effort stealing some of the force from my words. “I’ve been compromised! Zamorak, _get the fuck out of here!”_

Warning him conflicted with whatever contract Sliske had entered into with me and I collapsed to my knees, grit biting angrily into them through thin fabric. My vision blurred the ground in front of me into an incomprehensible haze.

I fought to stay still. To remain motionless and refuse the contract.

It was all I could do. I was defenseless and useless. There was nothing left but to accept the inevitable killing blow.

_When? When did I agree to anything with Sliske?_

I’d only agreed to him joining… no.

 _No,_ there had been something else. Something while we’d been…

_Fuck._

And _fuck_ was precisely why I was struggling not to turn my swords against my friend now.

_This is my fault and now we’re both going to pay for it._

I spared a hope that Zamorak would get away.

Instead of a killing blow or a continuation of Mahjarrat spells impacting the ground nearby, the sound around me ceased.

Another god’s voice spoke into the new silence. “To think I’d wasted time battling you, Zamorak, when I could’ve waited for your essential nature to pit you against someone else and picked you off at my leisure.”

My full attention was focused on denying the onus, but the voice was a cultured and haughty one I recognized too well.

Saradomin had known. Had been waiting for this.

Footsteps approached in the grass, the noise blunted by the hiss of a robe. Other footsteps receded slightly and a large hand rested carefully on my back. “Your patience will serve you nothing, you great blue fool.” Heavy cloth brushed my side as Zamorak knelt next to me. “We will settle our debts another time.”

Sliske’s laughter cut hotly into the calm. “Opportunistic as Zamorak himself, Saradomin. It’s a shame you didn’t make better use of it when you were vying for the Stone!”

Saradomin’s voice was as caustic as Sliske’s was amused. “Do not test me, you misbegotten liar. Nothing would please me more than to do away with both of you this very aftern-”

The beginnings of his threat drifted as rust-red haze replaced the gray and green in my vision. I felt the pervasive buzz of the teleport and the grass below me receded into nothingness.

The feel of Zamorak’s hand on my back remained as we escaped.

 

…………

 

_I hitched a ride with a vending machine repairman  
_ _He said he’d been down this road more than twice  
_ _He was high on intellectualism  
_ _I’ve never been there, but the brochure looks nice  
_ _…These are the days when anything goes..._

 

Sheryl Crow - “Everyday Is A Winding Road”

 

Hours passed before the pain abated, another still for the last of the drive to seek and protect Sliske to fade.

It was during that last hour that I told Zamorak everything. The invitation, Sliske’s speaking at some point during it all, my being _distracted_ and answering his words with little care for my own. I explained my demon-esque vulnerability to contracts that - it was clear now, at least - extended to the verbal, as well as Alathazdrar’s willingness to instruct me in negotiating and avoiding them.

He was largely silent as I spoke, his questions few and aired with puzzled concern. “What was said? Was it a general promise, or was the language explicit?”

I shrugged, still exhausted from forcing myself still when Moia wasn’t all but sitting on me to keep me that way. “I don’t know.”

Zamorak was silent for a moment before speaking again. “We could test-”

I shook my head. “I can’t go through that again without rest.” My gaze met his again. “I’m sorry, Zamorak. You could’ve been killed out there.”

He snorted, and watching a being both elegant and fearsome as Zamorak snort nearly toppled me into a fit of hysterical laughter. I was too tired. The events of the afternoon left me feeling stripped of mental insulation and edging into carelessness.

His tone was sober, hard, but not uncompromising. “I feel nothing but gratitude for your willingness to stand with me against Sliske, and that you underwent a great deal of pain in avoiding the compulsion.” He stood with a hand against the red rune-infused stone. “You will overcome this or find a way to adapt, and I will assist where I can. There are still demons at my command who might shed light on Sliske’s contract.”

I leaned against the wall of Daemonheim’s lowest floor and nodded, not feeling energetic enough to muster a smile. “Thank you. And thank you for getting me out of there.”

Zamorak’s own smile was rare, and a gift bestowed upon few. “Neither you nor Moia abandoned me during my defeat at Saradomin’s hand. You haven’t abandoned me at _any_ point. Instead, you’ve risked yourself repeatedly to see me restored, trained my soldiers while Daquarius did the same elsewhere, and supported me whether or not I stood at the peak of my power.”

His hand went to my shoulder. “I doubted much when you suggested a friendship. I doubt nothing now.”

I lifted my hand to grip his forearm. The hand on my shoulder left and clasped my forearm in return.

We were both silent. No more words were needed on the subject.

“Go home, Razwan. Return in a few days if no word is sent before then, and I will share with you whatever information I can find.”

Zamorak’s hand withdrew as mine did, and I found enough energy to smile. “I suppose I can’t avoid Nomad forever. He’s going to chew my ass off for this.”

Something that might’ve been a burst of laughter met my ear as I turned and gathered my swords and kit. “He should be grateful I didn’t kill him where he stood.”

I shook my head, my smile enjoying a few more seconds before it fell away and I considered my own words.

Nomad.

_I’ll be lucky if my ass is all he chews off._

 

_…………_

 

_If it makes you happy  
_ _It can’t be that bad  
_ _If it makes you happy  
_ _Then why the hell are you so sad?_

 

Sheryl Crow - “If It Makes You Happy”

 

The silence was wrong.

I knew it before I entered the tent. The hellrats I'd adopted were always dormant by now, having called for mayhem and riots for hours until they'd exhausted themselves, but that alone didn't account for the absolute quiet.

Things were missing. The common thread between them didn’t strike me right away.

A weapon from the rack against one end of the tent. Armor. A bag that normally hung with mine near the weapons. One pillow and a bedroll from the pair of them at the foot of our actual bed.

 _Quen’s_ armor and weapon. His bedroll, one he’d kept despite my repeated suggestion to exchange it for something less worn and tattered. The pillow from his side of the bed.

I couldn’t call out and break the silence. The absence of another human presence was stark as the gloom outside. No person-sized stirring of air, no nearly inaudible whisper of cloth or creak of furniture, no inhales or sighs, and the lack of signs too subtle to recognize on their own told me all I needed to know.

Half-crumpled parchment - something balled angrily but imperfectly in a fist before being tossed - sat discarded on the bed.

I went to it. Picked it up. Tugged carefully until it was smoothed enough to read the words written in Quen’s neat, gently accented handwriting.

_Razwan,_

_I will not return for some time. How long remains to be seen, but I have a great deal of thinking to do and it must be done without your company. It disgusts me to admit it, but Sliske_ does _understand you better than I do and the implications of that are not comfortable. I didn’t foresee you fighting alongside Zamorak rather than at my side._

_You lifted your sword against me in defense of another, contract or no. It would be laughable to accuse you of betrayal given our history, but betrayed I am._

_I don’t ask you for an explanation. Nor do I ask you to reconsider your allegiances._

_I ask that you leave me to review what exists between us alone. Do not seek me out._

_Strength through chaos, perhaps._

_Nomad_

The letter tumbled from my hand toward the carpet, catching air and veering sharply underneath the bed.

The extended sight with which I’d been gifted noticed a soft fluctuation in the shadows cast by the sole lantern on the table.

I didn’t turn to face the intruder.

He didn’t seem to mind. Claw-tipped fingers slid around my side to my stomach, pulling until metal from his robe _clinked_ mutely against the scabbards across my back.

“World Guardian.”

“No.”

“Razwan.”

“No.”

His voice was sultry and purring, but with an undercurrent of confusion. “Then what do you want from me tonight, pet? If you’re not in complete control or partial control, that leaves-”

I leaned against him and closed my eyes. “Hurt me, Sliske. Just hurt me.”

His lips brushed the outer arc of my ear. “My pleasure.”


End file.
